The problem with Common Core at the elementary level

When the new Common Core tests begin in Missouri schools and in schools across the nation, they will be taken online.

In an earlier post, I noted that this was going to require elementary students to learn keyboard and to be able to write on computers by the time they are in third grade.

The problems with this approach are explored in an article in today's Washington Post:

According to a report in The Washington Post, 14 states that have agreed to field-test the new exams linked to the Common Core are realizing that implementing the exams requires teaching little kids, from kindergarten up, to learn how to use a computer.

The standardized tests “require students to be able to manipulate a mouse; click, drag and type answers on a keyboard; and, starting in third grade, write online.” And while most elementary-age children are no strangers to technology, what they’re used to is operating those devices with “a swipe of a finger” rather than using them to compose a well-structured paragraph.

“It’s a huge deal,” said a California teacher who writes a popular blog called Ask A Tech Teacher. “All these elementary teachers are dying, worrying how they’re going to get their kids to meet these new requirements.”

The need to get little kids “to sit with two feet on the floor, elbows bent, hands hovering over keys and eyes on the screen” caused at least one Arizona teacher – like her colleague in New York struggling with paper-and-pencil tests – to wonder “whether developmentally, if it’s appropriate for kids.” A professor of educational psychology quoted in the article clarified: It’s not.

“The current Common Core is not developmentally appropriate,” she stated.